Millions of people around the world live in other countries than their countries of origin. In many developing countries, remittances sent home by migrants are a vital part of the economy. Transnational entrepreneurial activities by migrant entrepreneurs, also called diaspora entrepreneurs, involving resources from both the home and the host countries, can contribute to socio-economic value creation of both countries. ICT solutions can play an important role in facilitating and supporting such entrepreneurial activities. This chapter outlines the relevant context of migration, remittances, transnational diaspora entrepreneurship, and innovation systems, and discusses prerequisites and challenges of such ICT solutions.

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration. Lund University, School of Economics and Management.

Ramirez-Pasillas, Marcela

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration. Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO).

This paper employs an inductive case study to explore the relevance of the family functions in the opportunity creation process by immigrant entrepreneurs. We employ the perspective of the opportunity creation process and the family functions for theory building purposes. We conducted four cases of immigrant entrepreneurs who established businesses in Sweden and that have their origins in Lebanon and Syria, Cameroon, Mexico, and Syria. The paper identifies three family functions -- or family ways of working -- facilitating the opportunity creation process: (I) changing family roles, (II) family (acting) as a springboard, (III) family (acting) as trusting bedrock. These family functions were not static features rather processes influencing the opportunity creation process. The functions were connected to a specific opportunity creation process in the same order: (I) the triggering process, (II) the exploration of an entrepreneurial idea and (III) the exploitation of the entrepreneurial idea. The family functions changed as needed during the opportunity creation processes. Such change was however limited to the pool of resources available to the immigrant entrepreneur and the family in the home and host countries.

6.

Evansluong, Quang

et al.

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration.

Ramirez-Pasillas, Marcela

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration. Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO).

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration. Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO). Lund University, School of Economics and Management.

Ramirez-Pasillas, Marcela

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration. Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO).

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration.

Ramirez-Pasillas, Marcela

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration. Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO).

This paper conducts an inductive case study to build a theory on the role of family in both the host and home countries in immigrant entrepreneurs' attempts at creating entrepreneurial opportunities. We used the perspectives of the opportunity creation process and family social capital. We relied on data collected from four cases of immigrant entrepreneurs from Lebanon, Syria, Cameroon and Mexico who have established businesses in Sweden. The paper identified three sources of family social capital: family duties, family trust and family support as being relevant for creating opportunities. While family duties triggered the process of forming an entrepreneurial idea, this process was advanced by the existence of family trust. Family support was then the building block for launching an entrepreneurial idea. By identifying these three sources of family social capital, we show that families in the host and home countries contribute to immigrant entrepreneurs' opportunity creation.

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration. Lund University School of Economics and Management.

Ramirez-Pasillas, Marcela

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO). Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration.

This paper conducts an inductive case study to understand how the opportunity creation process leads to integration. It examines four cases of immigrant entrepreneurs of Cameroonian, Lebanese, Mexican and Assyrian origins who founded their businesses in Sweden. The study relies on process-oriented theory building and develops an inductive model of integration as an opportunity creation process. The model identifies entrepreneurial ‘breaking’ actions occurring in the integration process. This entails that immigrants act when they are socially excluded and discriminated in the labour market by developing business ideas and becoming entrepreneurs. By practicing the new language and accommodating native customers’ preferences, immigrants then reorient their entrepreneurial ideas. Finally, the immigrants tailor their ideas to suit their new customers by strengthening their sense of belonging to the local community. The suggested model shows immigrants’ acculturation into the host society via three successive phases: breaking-ice, breaking-in, and breaking-out. In the breaking-ice phase, immigrants trigger entrepreneurial ideas to overcome the disadvantages that they face as immigrants in the host country. In the breaking-in phase, immigrants articulate their entrepreneurial ideas by bonding with the ethnic community. In the breaking-out phase, the immigrants reorient their entrepreneurial ideas by desegregating them locally. The paper concludes by elaborating theoretical and practical implications of the research.

10.

Evansluong, Quang

et al.

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration.

Ramírez-Pasillas, Marcela

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration. Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO).

Entrepreneurial opportunities are frequently noted and addressed in the literature of immigrant entrepreneurship; however, little is known about how these entrepreneurial opportunities come into existence and how immigrant entrepreneurs create such opportunities. The purpose of this thesis is to examine why and how immigrant entrepreneurs create entrepreneurial opportunities through embedding processes in the home country and the host country.

Sweden was chosen as the country of residence of immigrant entrepreneurs from Lebanon, Syria, Cameroon and Mexico. Four cases were selected in this study. Each case illustrates an opportunity creation process in a different industry, between a different home country and Sweden as the host country and by immigrant entrepreneurs with different backgrounds.

By using the mixed embeddedness perspective as the theoretical lens in combination with the literature on entrepreneurial opportunity and immigrant entrepreneurship, this thesis develops a model of entrepreneurial opportunity creation as an integration process. The findings suggest that entrepreneurial opportunity creation can be considered as a process of local integration by immigrant entrepreneurs into the host country and a re-integration of these entrepreneurs into the home country. At the beginning of the opportunity creation process, immigrant entrepreneurs feel socially excluded in the host country. Throughout the opportunity creation process, immigrant entrepreneurs interact with different actors in the host country and gradually move from being socially excluded to socially included, which illustrates a local integration process. In this process, immigrant entrepreneurs become localized through different activities that embed them in the local context. The process of entrepreneurial idea and business concept development and the refinement of the business concept in this thesis illustrates an ongoing and non-linear process of: being locally integrated through creating trust in the local people, acculturating and creating a sense of belonging; and being re-integrated to the home country through maintaining and establishing new links to the home country.

The study contributes to the mainstream entrepreneurship and immigrant entrepreneurship in several ways. First, it contributes to studies on immigrant entrepreneurship by investigating why immigrants embark on a journey to be entrepreneurs and how immigrant entrepreneurs create entrepreneurial opportunities through embedding processes in the home and the host country. The study demonstrates how an entrepreneurial opportunity is created as a social integration process.

Second, the study contributes to literature on entrepreneurship and immigrant entrepreneurship by incorporating the entrepreneurial opportunity creation process with acculturation strategies. It illustrates how the entrepreneurial opportunity creation process intertwines with the four strategies of acculturation.

Third, the study contributes to the mixed embeddedness perspective by adopting the process approach and proposing mixed embedding as a new concept which centers on the interplay between the home and the host country’s influences on immigrants’ business activities; by extending mixed embeddedness from the national level of the home country or the host country to the transnational level between the home country and the host country; and by proposing an alternative way to view an entrepreneurial opportunity as a creation process instead of being discovered.

Fourth, the study contributes to the immigrant entrepreneurship literature in Sweden by furthering the understanding of entrepreneurial opportunity creation by immigrant entrepreneurs in Sweden.

Furthermore, the study suggests some implications for practice. The study proposes some embedding mechanisms which can be implemented in business support programs for immigrant entrepreneurs and in integration programs for immigrants in general. The design of the business support programs can aim to help immigrant entrepreneurs to: create credibility through contacts and experiences that they establish and gain in the local community; create familiarity to the local community through associating business concepts with well-known values; engage in the local life to understand customers’ mindsets, master the local language to understand local customers’ needs; and establish new/strengthen connections to the home country. The design of integration programs can aim to undertake activities that help immigrants increase the interaction between the local people and themselves. This type of interaction could be increased by organizing meetings and activities in which immigrants are introduced to different local sports clubs and hobby clubs. An approach in which the host country’s language is practiced and mastered anywhere and anytime should be adopted in the integration programs.

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration. Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO).

Evansluong, Quang

Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Business Administration. Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, United Kingdom.